David Demeritt | King's College London (original) (raw)
Papers by David Demeritt
Environment and Planning A, Dec 1, 2005
Annals of The Association of American Geographers, Jun 1, 2001
Edward Elgar Publishing eBooks, Feb 23, 2023
Journal of Historical Geography, 1994
... and 1970s, has eroded with a renewed belief that "pesky 'biological... more ... and 1970s, has eroded with a renewed belief that "pesky 'biological details' matter a lot ... therefore, Worster is also the most prominent and trenchant critic of the revisions in ecology. ... Worster complains that the new uncertainty about nature, equilibrium, and stability can "serve to ...
Antipode, Jul 1, 2000
This paper considers recent changes in US and UK science policy designed to make academic researc... more This paper considers recent changes in US and UK science policy designed to make academic research more publicly accountable and relevant. To this end, relations between public sector funding bodies academic researchers, andthe wider public are being reorganized in terms of customer‐contractor relations, though cultural and institutional differences mean these broad trends have produced different outcomes in the US and UK to which geographers will have to adapt. New forms of market based, customer accountability are restructuring the context of scientific research and reorienting long standing academic norms and values. Though these changes are designed to make academic research more responsive to the demands of various paying customers, the paper suggests the importance of reflexivity about the interests and identity involved.
Economy and Society, Aug 1, 2006
... Nigel Thrift 6. Space: making room for space in physical geography - Martin Kent 7. Time ... ... more ... Nigel Thrift 6. Space: making room for space in physical geography - Martin Kent 7. Time ... Globalisation: interconnected worlds - James Faulconbridge & Jonathan Beaverstock 20. Globalisation: Earth system science -- physical diversity and global heterogeneity - Nick Clifford ...
Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers, 2009
Progress in Human Geography, Jun 1, 1994
... Environmental historians are committed to integrating the independent agency of nature in the... more ... Environmental historians are committed to integrating the independent agency of nature in their narratives because it 'reminds us that there are different forces at work in the world and not all of them emanate from humans' (Worster, 1988: 292-93). ...
The Routledge Handbook of Political Ecology, 2015
Journal of Risk Research, Jan 30, 2023
This paper provides the first assessment of China's twenty-year experiment with food hygi... more This paper provides the first assessment of China's twenty-year experiment with food hygiene barometer rating systems, originally developed in the West for publicly communicating the grades awarded by food safety inspectors to individual businesses. This approach to regulating through disclosure is often celebrated for efficiently 'nudging' improved business compliance by empowering consumers to make ‘better’ decisions, but little is known about disclosure-based regulation in China or other low- and middle-income countries. Combining policy document and quantitative social media analysis with key informant interviews (n = 35), we show that barometers have failed to improve hygiene in China’s rapidly expanding private food sector: more than 75% of restaurants in four diverse case-study localities remain merely ‘Adequate’ with many of those unable in practice to meet basic safety standards. This is because regulatory implementation has been hesitant and unreliable; consumers ignore or distrust barometers; and food businesses lack the capacity and competitive incentive to improve. That failure to empower consumer sovereignty and leverage business behaviour change, however, also reflects how barometers – despite their liberal individualist conceit - were adapted to China’s revolutionary ‘mass line’ traditions of societal supervision of government regulators as much as food businesses. We conclude that barometers – far from being a ‘light-touch’ alternative to command-and-control regulation- require significant governance capacity, which may be lacking in low- and middle-income countries that struggle to conduct even basic regulatory oversight. Disclosure-based regulation also requires high levels of economic development, formalisation and trust to inculcate consumer and business responsiveness to information disclosures. Finally, our paper contributes to debates about risk communication and regulation by drawing the novel conclusion that the conceits underpinning seemingly universal tools of regulating through disclosure, get adapted to national state traditions and norms in ways that are far removed from their origins.
Environment and Planning A, 2012
Environment And Planning D: Society And Space, Aug 1, 2001
Progress in Human Geography, Dec 1, 2002
Routledge eBooks, Oct 24, 2017
EGU General Assembly Conference Abstracts, May 1, 2010
Following trends in operational weather forecasting, where ensemble prediction systems (EPS) are ... more Following trends in operational weather forecasting, where ensemble prediction systems (EPS) are now increasingly the norm, a number of hydrological and flood forecasting centres internationally have begun to experiment with using similar ensemble methods. Most of the research to date has focused on the substantial technical challenges of developing coupled rainfall-runoff systems to represent the full cascade of uncertainties involved in predicting future flooding. As a consequence much less attention has been given to the communication and eventual use of EPS flood forecasts. Thus, this talk addresses the general understanding and communicative challenges in using EPS in operational flood forecasting. Drawing on a set of 48 semi-structured interviews conducted with flood forecasters, meteorologists and civil protection authorities (CPAs) dispersed across 17 European countries, this presentation pulls out some of the tensions between the scientific development of EPS and their application in flood risk management. The scientific uncertainties about whether or not a flood will occur comprise only part of the wider `decision' uncertainties faced by those charged with flood protection, who must also consider questions about how warnings they issue will subsequently be interpreted. By making those first order scientific uncertainties more explicit, ensemble forecasts can sometimes complicate, rather than clarify, the second order decision uncertainties they are supposed to inform.
Hydrology and Earth System Sciences, Jul 26, 2011
Canadian Historical Review, 1993
Environment and Planning A, Dec 1, 2005
Annals of The Association of American Geographers, Jun 1, 2001
Edward Elgar Publishing eBooks, Feb 23, 2023
Journal of Historical Geography, 1994
... and 1970s, has eroded with a renewed belief that "pesky 'biological... more ... and 1970s, has eroded with a renewed belief that "pesky 'biological details' matter a lot ... therefore, Worster is also the most prominent and trenchant critic of the revisions in ecology. ... Worster complains that the new uncertainty about nature, equilibrium, and stability can "serve to ...
Antipode, Jul 1, 2000
This paper considers recent changes in US and UK science policy designed to make academic researc... more This paper considers recent changes in US and UK science policy designed to make academic research more publicly accountable and relevant. To this end, relations between public sector funding bodies academic researchers, andthe wider public are being reorganized in terms of customer‐contractor relations, though cultural and institutional differences mean these broad trends have produced different outcomes in the US and UK to which geographers will have to adapt. New forms of market based, customer accountability are restructuring the context of scientific research and reorienting long standing academic norms and values. Though these changes are designed to make academic research more responsive to the demands of various paying customers, the paper suggests the importance of reflexivity about the interests and identity involved.
Economy and Society, Aug 1, 2006
... Nigel Thrift 6. Space: making room for space in physical geography - Martin Kent 7. Time ... ... more ... Nigel Thrift 6. Space: making room for space in physical geography - Martin Kent 7. Time ... Globalisation: interconnected worlds - James Faulconbridge & Jonathan Beaverstock 20. Globalisation: Earth system science -- physical diversity and global heterogeneity - Nick Clifford ...
Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers, 2009
Progress in Human Geography, Jun 1, 1994
... Environmental historians are committed to integrating the independent agency of nature in the... more ... Environmental historians are committed to integrating the independent agency of nature in their narratives because it 'reminds us that there are different forces at work in the world and not all of them emanate from humans' (Worster, 1988: 292-93). ...
The Routledge Handbook of Political Ecology, 2015
Journal of Risk Research, Jan 30, 2023
This paper provides the first assessment of China's twenty-year experiment with food hygi... more This paper provides the first assessment of China's twenty-year experiment with food hygiene barometer rating systems, originally developed in the West for publicly communicating the grades awarded by food safety inspectors to individual businesses. This approach to regulating through disclosure is often celebrated for efficiently 'nudging' improved business compliance by empowering consumers to make ‘better’ decisions, but little is known about disclosure-based regulation in China or other low- and middle-income countries. Combining policy document and quantitative social media analysis with key informant interviews (n = 35), we show that barometers have failed to improve hygiene in China’s rapidly expanding private food sector: more than 75% of restaurants in four diverse case-study localities remain merely ‘Adequate’ with many of those unable in practice to meet basic safety standards. This is because regulatory implementation has been hesitant and unreliable; consumers ignore or distrust barometers; and food businesses lack the capacity and competitive incentive to improve. That failure to empower consumer sovereignty and leverage business behaviour change, however, also reflects how barometers – despite their liberal individualist conceit - were adapted to China’s revolutionary ‘mass line’ traditions of societal supervision of government regulators as much as food businesses. We conclude that barometers – far from being a ‘light-touch’ alternative to command-and-control regulation- require significant governance capacity, which may be lacking in low- and middle-income countries that struggle to conduct even basic regulatory oversight. Disclosure-based regulation also requires high levels of economic development, formalisation and trust to inculcate consumer and business responsiveness to information disclosures. Finally, our paper contributes to debates about risk communication and regulation by drawing the novel conclusion that the conceits underpinning seemingly universal tools of regulating through disclosure, get adapted to national state traditions and norms in ways that are far removed from their origins.
Environment and Planning A, 2012
Environment And Planning D: Society And Space, Aug 1, 2001
Progress in Human Geography, Dec 1, 2002
Routledge eBooks, Oct 24, 2017
EGU General Assembly Conference Abstracts, May 1, 2010
Following trends in operational weather forecasting, where ensemble prediction systems (EPS) are ... more Following trends in operational weather forecasting, where ensemble prediction systems (EPS) are now increasingly the norm, a number of hydrological and flood forecasting centres internationally have begun to experiment with using similar ensemble methods. Most of the research to date has focused on the substantial technical challenges of developing coupled rainfall-runoff systems to represent the full cascade of uncertainties involved in predicting future flooding. As a consequence much less attention has been given to the communication and eventual use of EPS flood forecasts. Thus, this talk addresses the general understanding and communicative challenges in using EPS in operational flood forecasting. Drawing on a set of 48 semi-structured interviews conducted with flood forecasters, meteorologists and civil protection authorities (CPAs) dispersed across 17 European countries, this presentation pulls out some of the tensions between the scientific development of EPS and their application in flood risk management. The scientific uncertainties about whether or not a flood will occur comprise only part of the wider `decision' uncertainties faced by those charged with flood protection, who must also consider questions about how warnings they issue will subsequently be interpreted. By making those first order scientific uncertainties more explicit, ensemble forecasts can sometimes complicate, rather than clarify, the second order decision uncertainties they are supposed to inform.
Hydrology and Earth System Sciences, Jul 26, 2011
Canadian Historical Review, 1993
Insurance is a key mechanism through which societies have been managing risks for centuries. For ... more Insurance is a key mechanism through which societies have been managing risks for centuries. For some, insurance is an efficient mechanism for risk management providing both regulation of risk-increasing behaviours and compensation for material damages. Others, in particular Ulrich Beck, have pointed to limits to insurability on the basis of the scale of damages and the complexity of contemporary risk. This paper engages with the question about the role of insurance in governing complex risks by describing and explaining the variable performance of flood insurance schemes in Germany and the UK against key risk governance objectives, namely, financial recovery and risk reduction. Drawing on in-depth empirical research, the paper argues that the mixed performance of flood insurance against governance objectives is shaped by the specific political, institutional and politico-economic context in which flood insurance schemes are embedded. Specifically, relations and interactions between state and private flood insurers, as well as past and present market conditions, shape how private insurance evolves, is organized, and facilitates or impedes financial recovery and risk reduction. The findings of this research provide important insights as to the limit, variety and implications of insurance as a governance mechanism for addressing contemporary risks.
Regulation and Governance, 2022
This paper explores the struggles of China's party-state to address chronic food safety problems ... more This paper explores the struggles of China's party-state to address chronic food safety problems by adopting international best practices of risk-based regulation. Despite formally adopting risk-based approaches for targeting inspections and enforcement in 2002, implementation has been halting and uneven, as we show in the first analysis of risk-based regulation beyond its OECD heartlands. Drawing on policy document analysis and 36 key informant interviews with food business operators and government officials working on food safety regulation at every level of the state, we identify contradictions between official commitments to risk-based inspection and top-down demands for zero tolerance and strict accountability, which leave local inspectors preoccupied with avoiding blame more than reducing safety risks. Our analysis advances recent scholarship on regulatory states of the global South by highlighting how risk-based ideas, instruments and practices are refracted through the distinctive norms and style of China's reactive regulatory state. "If we do not do a good job in food safety, and continue to mishandle the issue, then people will ask whether our party is fit to rule China."-Xi Jinping (2013)